Pearl Harbor 2

Allowing myself the luxury of 7.30am sleep in I indulged in the hotel buffet breakfast then jumped an Uber back to Pearl Harbor. Having sorted out the lay of the land previously I went straight to the shuttle bus and headed for the Top of the Tower to catch some mighty views of Pearl Harbor and its surroundings. There, an educated chap named Brian showed me where the two waves of Japanese fighters attacked from. He followed up by showing the location of the 100 or so capital ships that were anchored in the harbor that day and which of them made up the 20 or so damaged and sunken ships that were in the mix of things that day.

While I visited the control tower as part of the tour we did most of the tour on what was an old water tower that wasn't completed until 1942. 

From there I quickly joined the hangar tour where we taken through an array of war birds that had a connection to Pearl Harbor plus a smattering of other famous aircraft. There was even an old F1-11 there in Australian trim. The tour guide was excellent and had spent 4.5 years in Australia, specifically in Alice Springs. Her husband is a cryptanalyst. I quickly had her admit that she and he had both worked at Pine Gap. She was quick to note that was something she didn't admit to all that often when she was in the land of Oz. We both shared a laugh and she further admitted she even enjoyed the Midnight Oil song Power and the Passion even though she had first heard it well before knowing what it was really about. 

There was a piece of the Arizona on display and dummies of the armour piercing bomb used to sink it and another dummy of the type of torpedo used to sink the Utah and Oklahoma. There were examples of the Japanese planes used and a sample of one of the two American aircraft that actually made it off the ground on December 7th. On top of that they had an F14, and F15, and F16 and a Blue Angels F18 also on display along with about 40 other aircraft. The one aircraft I would have liked to have seen is the Catalina Flying Boat. There were close to 20 of them stationed in Honolulu on December 7th and most of them were wiped out. These aircraft were quite famous in Australia and were based at Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour and at Rathmines on Lake Macquarie. 

Well while can not have too much war buff stuff it was time to head back to the hotel for cocktails and canapes. Tomorrow is a free day. I may try and get up to "The Punchbowl" and Diamond Head. At the very least I will just take a walk along Waikiki Beach and put my feet in the other side of the Pacific Ocean. With not much going on I think my next post will be "Live From New York". In another attempt to mess with my head I get on a plane in Honolulu at 3,30pm, fly 9.5 hours to New York and arrive at 7.00am Saturday morning. My body clock is going to require another trip to the repair shop.